Visa delays keep couple apart

Karthik Sundar says he feels like he is living in limbo.

The call centre manager, who moved here on a work visa in 2014, applied for residency under the highly skilled migrant category in April. A month earlier, Sundar had applied for a partner visitor visa for thenfiancee Divya Gowthaman.

Neither has yet been given an answer and Sundar said delays in the process were taking a mental toll. Gowthaman cannot come to New Zealand until her visa is approved. The couple had an arranged marriage in April, having met in 2018. The relationship has been long-distance ever since. Sundar said he was frustrated at what seemed like slow progress of their applications through Immigration NZ.

Gowthaman’s application was only picked up by a case officer in October. Sundar’s attempts to contact his case manager have been unsuccessful.

He said that after calling for eight consecutive days to confirm his documents had been safely received, he gave up and emailed instead. He did not get a response for another month. ‘‘Their communication is appalling,’’ he said.

Immigration NZ said in November case managers contacted applicants when there was something new to tell them and there were 752 staff processing applications.

Immigration NZ national manager for business and specialist visa services Peter Elms said the agency projected it would have approved 50,000-55,000 residency applications between July 2018 and the end of this year.

Sundar’s case manager changed in October. The new case manager requested the same information Sundar sent in July by email but this time physical copies. Elms said the information originally provided was not passed on to the new case manager. ‘‘Immigration NZ apologises for the way in which Mr Sundar’s case was handed over and acknowledges it could have been handled better.’’

A harder line from Immigration NZ on visas for couples in culturally arranged marriages who had not spent time living together had added more stress, Sundar said. ‘‘My wife and I have been living separately for over six months since we have been married, and have been going through acute levels of mental distress due to Immigration NZ’s delays and lack of communication. We had to fly to Australia two weeks back to meet and spend time with each other.’’

Last week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the policy should be reversed as the directive did not come from Cabinet.

Elms said due to Sundar’s recent promotion a new employment assessment was required, and there was no timeframe for a decision.